Officials from Serbia and Croatia say that only refugees who wish to seek asylum in Austria or Germany will be allowed to enter the two countries and continue their journey toward Western Europe. In Zagreb, Croatia's Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said authorities there will request migrants seeking entry to state which European Union country will be their final destination. Hundreds of refugees are stranded at Greece's northern border with Macedonia, after Macedonian authorities stopped letting them through citing problems with transit flows further north on the Balkan route which have caused a chain reaction. People from those countries are recognized as refugees by Balkan countries and normally allowed through on their way to Germany and other wealthy European Union members. A further 37,220 people, mostly from western Balkan nations, took advantage of a financial assistance program and left voluntarily in 2015. An international rights organization has called on Bulgaria's government to stop forcefully returning asylum-seekers from its borders before they have the chance to apply for refugee status. All but one said they were stripped of their possessions, in some cases at gunpoint by people they described as Bulgarian law enforcement officials, and later pushed back across the border to Turkey. To prevent a further massive influx, the government deployed more police officers at the Turkish border and built a fence along a 33-kilometer (20-mile) stretch. Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities in northwestern Turkey have rounded up some 1,300 migrants who were allegedly preparing to make their way to Greece. Seibert told reporters in Berlin that a range of measures are needed to achieve the drop in migrant arrivals and urged European countries to make good on their pledge of giving 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) to Turkey. The two officials are from the two parties that make up Austria's coalition government — Faymann heads the Social Democratic Party while Mitterlehner belongs to the centrist People's Party. Britain's government has ordered an investigation into alleged discrimination against asylum-seekers amid reports that many of the homes being provided for them have red front doors that mark them out for racial abuse. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire says the Home Office will launch an inquiry after an investigation by the Times newspaper found that most public housing for asylum-seekers from Syria and eastern Europe in the northeastern English town of Middlesborough had red front doors. Before a refugee summit of national and regional government leaders, a senior minister says Austria wants to reduce the number of migrants entering the country to no more than 40,000 a year.
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